


One Foot In the Graveyard (The Living In the Past Remix)

by elrhiarhodan



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Neal - Keller friendship, Paris (City), Pre-Series, Underground
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:58:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal makes a drunken bet with Matthew Keller – to spend a day and a night with the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Foot In the Graveyard (The Living In the Past Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slytheringurrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytheringurrl/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151239) by [slytheringurrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytheringurrl/pseuds/slytheringurrl). 



Once upon a time, on a hot summer night in Paris when he’s young and stupid and thinks he’s immortal, Neal accepts a dare from Matthew Keller. They’ve already gone through two bottles of absinthe and Matthew has just opened a third. 

Neal watches with the intensity that only the truly stoned can bring to bear as Matthew prepares the next round of the drink in the _Method Bohemian_. Matthew puts the cubes of sugar on the slotted spoons placed atop each glass and pours a far too generous portion of the spirit over them. 

His friend, the devil, asks, “How about a little fire to get things going?” 

Neal fumbles with the box of matches on the table. He’s impaired, his coordination degraded, but he manages to set both cubes aflame without torching everything. The fire burns bright blue until it gutters and dies. Matthew dumps the cubes into the glasses and adds some cold water, barely enough to dilute the spirit.

“Salute.” He toasts Neal, who returns the sentiment before downing the concoction in a single gulp. That’s a mistake. Not the first, though. And probably not the last before the night is over.

Matthew sips his drink and looks at him over the rim of the glass. No, not _looks_ – stares. Neal shivers under that gaze. “What do you want?”

“I want a lot of things, Caffrey.” Matthew licks his lips. “But I’m not going to get any of them tonight. Except maybe beating you at a game of chess.”

They’re drinking absinthe and playing chess, and for the record, Neal realizes that playing chess when inebriated is a bad idea. He loses his queen in five moves, and Matthew has him checked and mated in eight. 

“Rematch?” Matthew resets the board without waiting for Neal’s answer.

Neal shrugs, it’s not like he has anything better to do at the moment. “Sure, why not?”

“Let’s make this game interesting. Maybe if you’ve got something to lose, you’ll play with more concentration.”

Neal swallows and nods. He tastes the anise and the wormwood in the back of his throat. “What do you suggest?”

“How about if the loser spends a day and a night with the dead?”

Neal’s too far gone to realize what he’s really getting into. But rather than ask for an explanation and risk Matthew’s derision, he foolishly accepts the bet and says, “Fine. No risk, no reward.”

“Ah, but that’s the difference between you and me. You live by your impulses and I prefer to plan my moves.”

Neal shrugs. “Where’s the adventure in that?”

“And it always has to be about the adventure, right?”

He suspects that Matthew is laughing at him. “I like to tempt fate, you know that.”

“Yes, you do.” Matthew drains his glass and motions to Neal with it, silently asking if he’d like another. 

Neal holds up a hand, declining the offer. He focuses instead on the chess board. As always, he plays white and makes the opening gambit. 

This time, Matthew demolishes him in twelve moves. He smirks and Neal’s reminded of one of those grinning imps in Bosch’s _The Garden of Earthly Delights_. “Hope you like the dark.”

“It’s a full moon tomorrow night. No rain in the forecast.” 

“Ah, but you won’t be seeing the moon. And the weather won’t matter where you’re going, anyway.”

Neal’s confused. “I’m spending a night in a cemetery, right?”

“Well, not exactly. I said ‘a day and a night with the dead.’ Although I guess you could consider the catacombs a cemetery.” 

“The catacombs?” Neal swallows as a cold, hard knot of fear forms in his stomach. How the hell does Matthew know the one thing he’s terrified of? 

“Are you chicken, Neal? Too scared to spend twenty-four hours underground with the dead? Don’t tell me that the great Neal Caffrey’s frightened of some old bones?”

Neal doesn’t answer right away. His brain, still suffering from the effects of the green fairy, keeps shying away from the very idea of going underground. It isn’t the ancient skeletons that bother him; it’s the endless, perpetual darkness, the complete absence of sunlight that’s making him ill. “Why? ”

Matthew’s still smirking. “Why not?”

Neal is not so far gone that he forgets the cardinal rule of doing business with Matthew Keller – never give him an edge. If he tells Matthew he’s afraid of the dark, Matthew will never forget and never let an opportunity pass to use that fear again him. 

So it’s Neal’s turn to shrug. He pretends a nonchalance that he’s far from feeling. “Twenty-four hours in the catacombs, no sweat. How are you going to check to make sure I’m not cheating? Are you coming with me?”

“Nah, Caffrey. I know you – you’re not the kind to welch on a bet. You might be a con artist, but you’re not a cheat.”

Neal doesn’t know whether he should be flattered or not. He makes his way over to the couch and stretches out, suddenly too tired to care.

He wakes up with an origami skull on his chest. He unfolds it and finds an address in the XIV. Arrondisement, in Montparnasse. It isn’t all that far from the official entrance to the stretch of the catacombs where the public’s allowed to go. This address, though, is probably one of the hundreds of secret entrances to the Empire of the Dead. Neal figures that he’ll get other instructions when he gets there. He’s been with Matthew for too long to be so naïve to think that the man wouldn’t do everything possible to make sure he didn’t cheat.

He grabs his cell phone, a small flash light and a few bottles of water. He probably should get some food, except the thought of spending twenty-four hours underground robs him of any appetite.

Neal arrives at the address and his heart sinks. It’s an empty building, covered in graffiti and surrounded by two weed-choked lots. 

“Glad to see you could make it, Caffrey.” Matthew steps out of the shadows. “I wondered if you’d come.”

“We made a bet, and I’m not a welsher.”

Matthew doesn’t say anything; he just walks towards the back of the building – which looks like it a junkie’s den. The little light that filters through the broken windows glints off discarded syringes and small broken bottles. The place reeks of despair. Neal follows him from room to room, until they reach an overgrown garden surrounded on all sides by an ancient brick wall.

Matthew breaks a path through the weeds, to what looks like the remnants of a small cistern with a ladder poking out the top. “Here you go. This is your way in.”

“And my way out, too?”

Matthew shakes his head, his dark eyes full of evil humor. “Nah. At the bottom, you’ll find the rest of your instructions. Your bet – such as it is – will be considered paid in full when you’ve completed all of the tasks I’ve set to you.”

“A scavenger hunt? You’re sending me on a scavenger hunt?”

Matthew smiles, “Think of it this way – life is more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.”

“Really? You’re quoting Jimmy Buffet now?”

Matthew just gestures to the well. “Time’s a-wasting, Caffrey.”

Neal approaches the cistern with gut-churning trepidation. Anything could be at the bottom. Just as he’s about to get on the ladder, Matthew grabs his arm. “Your cell phone. Give it to me.”

“Huh? Why do you want my phone? It’s not like I can call anyone from underground.”

“Actually, you’d be surprised how strong of a signal you can get down there.” Matthew doesn’t wait for Neal to give him his phone – he just shoves a hand into his pants pocket and grabs it. “You’ll get this back when I see you again.”

Neal grits his teeth in frustration, but he’s angrier at himself than at Matthew. He should have known better, and this is just what he deserves for making drunken bets with the devil. This time, when he starts climbing down the ladder, Matthew doesn’t stop him. He watches with his arms crossed, like one of the gargoyles that decorate Notre Dame. Neal reaches the bottom, and not only is there an envelope with his name on it, but a backpack. There’s a crack in the wall – just wide enough for him to fit through. 

Matthew leans over the edge of the cistern, blocking out the sunlight. “See you tomorrow, Neal. Don’t let the rats get you.”

Neal thinks, _No, that I don’t have to worry about, I’ve already been gotten by the biggest rat of all…_

The ladder’s pulled out of the well, the light vanishes, and there’s a heavy thud as a lid seals out the living world. Matthew, damn him, is taking no chances. He knows that Neal doesn’t need ladders and ropes to get out of holes like this. And even if he tries to climb out, he’s not going anywhere; there’s a distinctive snick of a padlock closing, locking him in. Neal does his damnedest not to panic.

At least he has a flashlight. He opens the envelope and finds a partial map. There are instructions on where to find the next part of the puzzle, but no clue as to and what he’s supposed to collect. Neal hopes it’s not a bone, though he knows that Matthew has a macabre sense of humor, and the object of this scavenger hunt might end up being a complete human skeleton.

Neal picks his way through the tunnels. The need to keep careful count of his paces pushes his fear of the dark into the back of his mind. He isn’t precisely unafraid, but anxiety isn’t the chief emotion. He finds himself curious, intrigued by the challenge. And worried that Matthew knows him so well.

All is well until he finds himself at a three-way fork in the tunnel. There’s a right fork, a left fork, and a left-left fork. The map in his hand shows only two ways to go, right and left, and he’s supposed to go left. The fear that he’d done so well to suppress comes roaring back and all he can think about is being trapped down here forever.

Neal can’t go back and he can’t go forward. It’s hot and it’s dark and the silence is deafening. He takes a deep breath and tries not to panic, he tries to remember if there was another fork that he passed – maybe he miscounted and came too far. He leans against the wall – it’s rough limestone, not stacks of bone – and remembers the backpack. Maybe there’s something in there. 

He looks through it, surprised at Matthew’s consideration. There are a dozen energy bars, plenty of water, a flashlight –considerably larger than the one he’s using. There’s also a compass, a Mylar blanket, and a cheap, disposable lighter. Not quite a survival kit, but pretty damn close. 

The panic recedes a little. Matthew has clearly been planning this for a while, and Neal just wishes he can see what the end game is.

He traces back his steps and finds that he’d completely missed a branch in the tunnel. He takes the left fork and continues for another hundred paces. The instructions and the map end. Neal runs the flashlight along the wall and finds another envelope. He opens it; it’s just another map and another set of instructions. There’s nothing else there – no prize to claim – nothing to take with him. He begins to wonder if this is all some elaborate joke. 

But he really has no choice. He has to keep going on and he prays that at the end of this, there will be a way out.

As he travels, the dark becomes familiar, comfortable, something to be used rather than feared. He finds the next set of instructions, and then the next. Soon, he’s got a dozen pieces of the map in his backpack. 

Now that his heart isn’t beating in overtime, Neal realizes that the catacombs aren’t really silent. Water drips against stone, the pinging sharp and arrhythmic. In the background, he can hear more water as it rushes through the ancient sewers and pipes. Rats squeak and scurry and Neal thinks he feels one run over his boot.

This stretch of the map doesn’t require any counting. There are no branches or forks or turns he has to make. The instructions tell him to follow the tunnel until he gets to a large vaulted chamber. 

As he walks, Neal finds himself thinking about – of all things - the FBI agent that’s been on his tail since those early, heady days in New York. Special Agent Peter Burke. He wonders what the man would think about this little jaunt through the Empire of the Dead. He’d probably laugh and tell him he’s breaking the law or something.

Neal doesn’t understand his deep fascination with the man. He’s a damn Fed and he’s doing his best to put him in jail. But he _likes_ him. Maybe it’s because Burke’s a cut above the usual “Suits”, as Mozzie calls them. It’s the intelligence that grabs Neal, that ability to make the leaps of intuition that often put him just a step or two behind. It’s kind of pathetic, but Neal can’t help but think that in another life, they might have been friends. If he hadn’t learned the truth about whose son he really was, they might even have become colleagues. He can’t help but think about the different path his life might have taken if Ellen hadn’t told him about his father. He might have applied to the FBI; he might have been one of the good guys.

Instead, he’s climbing through the catacombs of Paris, breathing in the dust of the dead, all because of some stupid, pointless bet.

Another fifty feet and he reaches the end of the tunnel. The walls lift in front of him; they’re almost twelve feet high, packed from floor to ceiling with bones. Neal doesn’t find Matthew’s envelope right away and spends quite a few minutes shining the beam of light along the wall. Instead of the next set of instruction, however, he finds something completely unexpected. A carved sign that says _Rue Bonaparte_. He knows where he is.

Fuck Matthew Keller and this stupid bet. 

He doesn’t care if the twenty-four hours aren’t up, he doesn’t give a damn about collecting the rest of the pieces of the puzzle – because there are no pieces, just the instructions. And Keller’s crazy enough to make _those_ the object of this ridiculous scavenger hunt.

Neal finds the next envelope and doesn’t bother to open it. He’s going to find his way out, now.

Rather than impetuously pick a direction, Neal tries to plan, which doesn’t come easily. That’s a skill he usually relies on others – Matthew, Mozzie – for. But he’s certainly not a fool and he can figure this out. He takes stock of his assets and remembers the compass. He’s under Rue Bonaparte, so he’s someplace between the Luxembourg Gardens and Boulevard Saint-Germain. If he’s lucky, he’s closer to Saint-Germain and the Metro station, which could mean a convenient way out.

Neal checks the compass and turns towards magnetic north. It’s no guarantee that he’ll find an exit, but eventually, he’s going to hit the walls that keep the Seine from flooding the city.

He’s more than proud of himself when he finds a passageway with what looks like fairly modern chalk markings. _Cataphiles_ have been this way, war-chalking for their fellow explorers. Neal finds another arrow, and then another one next to a narrow break in the wall. This arrow is pointing up and his heart pounds in excitement – it’s pointing to a set of stairs spiraling upwards. Neal turns his flashlight towards the ceiling and discovers a round manhole cover. He hopes it doesn’t open into the middle of a busy street. Or that it hasn’t been welded shut.

He climbs the stairs and with a whispered prayer, Neal sets his palms against the cool iron and pushes. The metal lid flings out with a resounding clatter. His luck holds – he’s emerged onto a quiet side street filled with parked cars.

Neal hauls himself onto the street and breathes deep of the warm night air. The sun is low in the sky. He figures it’s around eight PM, which means he’s been wandering underground for about twelve hours. If Matthew wants to give him grief, he can. He can also find himself another forger for the next eternity – or two.

Neal hauls the iron manhole lid back into place and takes stock of his surroundings – he can see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. He realizes that while he’s not particularly tired, he’s pretty damn hungry. If there’s one thing that the City of Lights has no shortage of, it’s restaurants. He goes into a well-lit bistro and orders a hearty meal of _moules-frites_ , because what else should you eat in a Parisian bistro?

Hunger satisfied, Neal heads across the Seine to the Left Bank apartment he shares with Matthew, feeling a lot more charitable now that he’s freed himself from the Empire of the Dead.

“You’re back a little soon, Caffrey.” Matthew doesn’t bother to look up from the chessboard he’s examining. “About twelve hours too early.”

“Your game was fun for a while, but I got bored.” Neal tosses the pieces of the map at the other man.

Matthew finally gives him his full attention, and Neal’s surprised at the almost-kind smile on his lips. “Then this exercise was not in vain.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve learned a lesson, Caffrey.”

“Lesson?” He must be more tired than he realizes. Matthew isn’t making much sense.

“Yeah. Wanted to teach you a lesson.”

“It’s been a long day, what exactly is the lesson I’m supposed to have learned?”

Matthew’s smile isn’t so nice, now. “You’ve learned to think for yourself. You’ve finally grown a pair.”

Neal feels the burn of an embarrassed flush, but he doesn’t give into his anger. “Thank you.”

Matthew’s reply is typically sardonic, “You’re welcome.”

Neal heads off to the bathroom. He’s anxious to wash off the dust of the dead. As he scrubs himself clean, he realizes that Matthew’s taught him another lesson, one just as important. 

He no longer fears the dark.

__

FIN


End file.
